Initial Magazine Research and Ideas

My initial task was the research into 3 existing music magazines, and find out their target audience, and reasonings behind this. To do this I found an example of each of the named magazines I have chosen on the internet and did a brief analysis into the ways they appeal directly the their target audiences through the images, colours schemes, cover prices and more shown on the front cover which is the first aspect of a magazine the reader will see when deciding whether to purchase it. This helped me begin to gather ideas about the way music magazines are carefully designed and presented using semiotic signs.

After this, I wrote a 1,000 word essay on my own initial ideas for a music magazine, using the following brief set by my teacher.

In this essay I included a description of how my front cover would look, the celebrity I would choose to use and all of the features such as colours schemes and the mise-en-scene of the image, like clothing. I then described an idea of a main article for my magazine, including the topic, the artist and images used, and some information on the target audience of this article. Finally I came up with a list of 12 articles which could be included on a contents page, using both ideas for regular features which would be in every issue of my magazine, and also articles exclusive to this issue. This has started to give me ideas into the types of things I would like to include in my own production task for this coursework such as articles which would appeal to a certain target audience, and the composition of a front cover, as I am aware that I need to produce 3 things; a front cover, contents page and double page spread.

The grade I received for this piece of work was a B. I was pleased with this grade as this was just an initial task having done very little research into existing music magazines. My teacher said I had good ideas for the magazine and knew what my audience would like to see, as well as having a 'current' hook regarding One Direction's new movie, therefore will ensure in my real task I feature a very current and relevant topic to entice a reader into buying my magazine. The advice I was given was to be careful when including circular flashes as these can sometimes make a magazine look unprofessional and to be careful to choose an artist which will appeal directly to my target audience, so these are two things which I will take into account when creating my coursework.